BOULDER — For Rick George, this round of déjà vu didn’t feel any better than the last round.
“There (are) no excuses,” the CU Buffs athletic director said Sunday evening at the Champions Center at a news conference explaining the dismissal of football coach Karl Dorrell earlier in the day.
“I own my part in where we are today … the on-the-field performance fell well short of where it needs to be. And it starts with me. I hired Karl.”
George was center stage at his third coach-departure news conference in five years. Four Buffs football coaching tenures since 1946 have lasted fewer than 30 games, and George has been the man in charge of the athletic department for two of them.
The university announced Sunday afternoon that the 59-year-old Dorrell had been relieved of his duties after 23 games at the helm and an 0-5 start to his third season.
Dorrell’s tenure was the third-shortest in the Buffs’ post-World War II history, behind Bud Davis (10 games in 1962) and Dorrell’s immediate predecessor, Mel Tucker (12 games in 2019).
George, who was named to his current position in July 2013, said he made the decision to fire Dorrell late Saturday evening, after watching the Buffs fall at Arizona, 40-23. He said he told the coach of his decision Sunday afternoon.
“I didn’t see progress from Week 3 (when the Buffs were 0-3) to Week 5,” George explained.
The CU administrator, who was joined at the news conference by chancellor Phil DiStefano and interim head coach Mike Sanford, said he planned to consult with former CU players and with national voices on a replacement, but did not mention the use of a search firm.
CU said in a news release that it will owe Dorrell approximately $8.7 million. The buyout would’ve dropped $7.4 million if the university had waited until after Dec. 31 to make a move.
The Buffs’ athletic department also announced that defensive coordinator/outside linebackers coach Chris Wilson had been let go. Gerald Chatman will serve as the team’s defensive coordinator and passing game coordinator/tight ends coach Clay Patterson replaces Sanford as offensive coordinator.
Sunday’s news closed the books on one of the more curious recent coaching tenures in Buffs history. It began with a hiring that initially came as something of a shock, followed by a reign that was delayed by a global pandemic. The era eventually started with a flourish, only to fizzle out badly.
Dorrell posted an 8-15 record at CU, 6-9 in conference games. But the veteran coach and former Buffs assistant was 4-15 over his last 19 games.
Fourteen of those 15 losses were by 15 points or more, and CU (0-5, 0-2 Pac-12) this past Saturday night became the first team in program history to open a season with five consecutive losses of 23 points or more.
It was an ignominious end to a tenure that saw Dorrell post a 4-2 record, 3-1 in Pac-12 play, during his debut season of 2020. Because of COVID-19, the season was initially suspended until spring 2021, then moved back to the fall and eventually delayed until the first week of November.
Dorrell, who hadn’t been a collegiate head coach since being let go by UCLA after the 2007 season, had been hired to replace Mel Tucker on Feb. 23, 2020.
CU opened that season — in front of only 554 fans at Folsom Field because of coronavirus restrictions — with a 48-42 win over UCLA. COVID cancellations reduced the Buffs’ revised regular-season schedule from eight games to five, but CU posted a 4-1 record, thanks largely to the running of tailback Jarek Broussard and a defense led by linebacker Nate Landman. The Buffs were one of only two Pac-12 teams who played in a postseason game in 2020, accepting an invitation to the Alamo Bowl, where they were trounced by Texas, 55-23.
While the Dorrell era opened to empty seats, ironically, the threat of empty seats post-pandemic may have also played a role in hastening his departure.
The ’22 season was pitched as one of fresh starts and new hope, as Dorrell replaced six full-time assistant coaches, four on the offensive side of the ball, swapping coordinator Darrin Chiaverini with former Minnesota offensive play-caller Mike Sanford, who had been let go by Gophers coach P.J. Fleck.
But over the first month of the season, that side of the ball looked even shakier than it did the year before. Fans turned up in force for the season-opener against TCU but eventually booed the offense off the field and more than half had left by the fourth quarter.
The Buffs averaged only 10 points per game in non-conference setbacks to the Horned Frogs (38-13), Air Force (41-10) and Minnesota (49-7).
A planned rotation of sophomore Brendon Lewis and transfer J.T. Shrout at quarterback proved highly ineffective and in a bid to jump-start his passing game, Dorrell inserted true freshman Owen McCown at quarterback for conference tests against UCLA and Arizona. The Buffs averaged 18.5 points in those two games, but the defense allowed 45 points and 43 points, respectively.
Whatever honeymoon had developed between Dorrell and the CU fan base had faded after a 4-8 season in 2021, the coach’s first regular season of more than seven losses and first season as a Pac-12 head coach that didn’t end in a postseason berth.
Those rifts were exacerbated by the sheer volume of Buffs players who elected to take advantage of the liberalized transfer portal in the fall of 2021 and winter/spring of ’21-22. CU saw 23 players transfer out during those two cycles, a group that included starters Broussard, wide receivers Brenden Rice and Dimitri Stanley, cornerbacks Mekhi Blackmon and Christian Gonzalez, and safety Mark Perry.
Dorrell was hired with the reputation for being level-headed during even the most arduous circumstances, but that rep took a curious turn early during the 2021 season, his second at the helm and first that wasn’t reduced by COVID-19 cancellations. Following a 30-0 loss at home to Minnesota the coach reportedly declined to fulfill his postgame interview obligations to the CU football radio network. And in a clip that went viral nationally, moments after a 37-14 home loss to USC, Dorrell jostled a KCNC-TV photojournalist, with the coach appearing to shove the photojournalist’s camera as he left the field. Dorrell later apologized privately and publicly for the latter incident.
“This place can be and will be a football powerhouse,” George said Sunday evening. “I’m more confident than ever in Colorado football.”
